Two films, about Varèse and Cage. I watch the second at home on YouTube. For the first film, only 4 souls in the audience.

Well, Varèse I’ve always liked and respected. As to the film, I find this review (from Variety) quite to the point. My underlinings.

"The life and influence of French-American composer Edgard Varese are explored in monotonous fashion in “The One All Alone,” the latest nonfiction feature by Dutch helmer Frank Scheffer (“Conducting Mahler”). Alternating adulatory talking heads shot on functional HD with long musical interludes set to only tangentially related archival footage, Scheffer’s film would work just as well as a radio documentary. Title, referring to one of Varese’s works, might suggest the pic’s chances in wider distribution.

Scheffer calls on Chou Wen-chung, Varese’s protege, as well as contempo composers and conductors such as Elliot Carter (already the subject of a previous Scheffer docu), Pierre Boulez and Riccardo Chailly, to explain the importance and uniqueness of Varese’s work. Carefully picked speakers all agree he was a visionary but do little else besides fawn over his achievements. Work is too incomplete and dry to function as an intro to Varese for the musically curious, but also lacks the critical distance and rigor required to start discussions among the cognoscenti. The choice to have all foreigners speak in heavily accented English is odd; tech credits are just OK.”

This is a rather disrespectful review, the kind I sometimes also write. I thought there were some typos there, but it seems Variety has it’s own slanguage. Interesting…

“Helmer” means director, and “contempo”, that word I understand even if it is new to me.

Of course Varèse is interesting, and I should probably talk about him and his role in modern music. But I actually find the review more interesting as a takeoff for today’s reflection.

Respect is central to modern music. In many ways and varieties.

Respect. Lack of respect. But also a third important variety: disrespect.

Disrespect is not lack of respect; it is something, while lack of respect is nothing, just absence.

Disrespect is active and cares, at least enough to say something. Sometimes just rubbish, sometimes something very appropriate and to the point.

"Tell your students: "DON'T DO IT! STOP THIS MADNESS! DON'T WRITE ANY MORE MODERN MUSIC!" (If you don't, the little stinker might grow up to kiss more ass than you, have a longer, more dramatic neck-scarf, write music more baffling and insipid than your own, and Bingo, there goes your tenure!)"

This was Frank Zappa’s addressing ASUC (American Society of University Composers). Very funny, very irreverent. We who are familiar with the world of composers see that Zappa knows what he is talking about.

And he does it, I suggest, in a caring way. But let’s go deeper into this question of respect.

There are books, poems, musical pieces, photographs that I respect very much. I might express this somehow, in spoken word or writing. Other books, poems, musical pieces, photographs (a much larger number) I don’t really respect or care about. I ignore them, do not even waste words on them.

For me both respect and disrespect are expressions, while lack of respect is just lack: silence.

Disrespect can be criticism, and criticism can be disrespectful. We can broadly differentiate between two kinds: criticism from ignorance or from “informance” (being informed). To a bystander they might sound the same, but they are actually very different animals.

The similarity lies in “I don’t like this”, the difference in WHY (and whether I can motivate “why”?).

When I sometimes criticize modern music, the first and most banal reaction is “don’t listen to him, he is ignorant”. Disrespect and criticism must come from ignorance, that is the common and popular view, especially in modern music. It is also a comfortable and defensive view, since it serves as bulwark against attacks.

What to say about attacks on modern music?

There’s an entire book by Nicolas Slonimsky about them: “Lexicon of Musical Invective.”

Slonimsky takes the usual, predictable, partisan view that good musicians and composers have always been dissed. That is to be expected and only normal. Following Slonimsky one risks falling into the (il)logical well of “If people say something is shit today it is almost bound to be a MBFIT (masterpiece before its time).”

If only it were so simple. One could also postulate the possibly more true, and more disrespectful, “If people love it today it is bound to be shit in the long run.”

So, here are our bricks: Respect, disrespect, criticism, attack. How do they relate to modern music and to Present Day Composer who refuses to die?

Officially modern music gets respect. I would like to hear a politician, minister of culture or head of a concert house say “We don’t like this modern music, and next year we will play less of it and give it less money (quasi niente)”. No, that does not sound good.

Let’s realize that we live in a world where EUPHONY is of utmost importance. Words, sentences, phrases should (irrespective of what is behind them, if anything) SOUND GOOD. In a superficial, buzzwordy way; more is not asked for.

So of course we don’t hear such phrases from a minister of culture. Modern music gets verbal, and to a degree, financial “respect”. It is close to lip-service, because how often does this minister of culture actually visit and sit through modern music concerts (apart from mingling on festival opening nights)?

So this I would call verbal “respect”. Note the quotation mark.

…

The other film (I watched it at home) was “How to get out of the cage”. Same film maker as before, partly overlapping with the earlier Cage film. This was longer and better.

Just a few comments, since I need to sleep, and should work on my own compositions, not write this lengthy diary.

0) Why two films about Cage? One gets the impression, once again, that Cage is very important. (In a way I agree, but not in the usual modernistic way.)

1) The title is incredibly interesting. I would translate/ rephrase it to “How to get out of the John Cage“.

We need too heal and neutralize the influence of John Cage. His harmful influence was not his fault, but rather the fault of writers of music history who proclaimed him Seminal Composer. It’s time to revise, question and even blaspheme. I am pretty sure Cage wouldn’t have wanted to be a sacred cow, what he in many ways has become.

2) The longer I watch the film the more I like Cage as a person. He is the kind of guy I would like to have as a neighbor and invite to my parties. But as to his influence on music, see point 1.

3) Enough. There is much more to say about the film, and even more about RESPECT (you noticed I left off in the middle of a train of thought). Later perhaps. I am tired and a bit angry that this is taking so much of time. (To be continued.)